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Uber's determination to address its past scandals remains in effect. The ridesharing firm has agreed to settle the second lawsuit from the Indian rape victim who accused the company of improperly obtaining her medical records. While the company isn't commenting on the settlement or its terms, a court filing revealed that the two sides will formally reach a deal in June. The suit represented a particularly dark chapter for Uber, as it underscored the outfit's Kalanick-era tendency to fight legal challenges that few other companies would resist.

As Star Wars: The Last Jedi approaches its December 15th theatrical release, get ready to see the power of Disney's fully armed and operational merchandising machine. OnePlus has revealed that it will be part of that circus with the 5T Star Wars Limited Edition smartphone. Coming to India on December 14th, it's bedecked with a red side button, backside Star Wars logo and screen theme featuring First Order stormtrooper wallpaper.

Virgin Hyperloop One is eyeing the possibility of building networks of high-speed tube transportation in India. The company, which recently rebranded to include "Virgin" in its name after Richard Branson's investment, has started conducting studies with three Indian states to determine potential routes. Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are looking to offer hyperloops as part of their public transit system in the future to give people a way to travel from their homes to India's economic centers in a few minutes instead of a few hours.

Apple and India's telecoms regulator have been at loggerheads for more than a year over privacy concerns, but now it seems a tentative compromise has been reached, with the tech company agreeing to help the Indian government develop an anti-spam app for its iOS platform.

With its sanitary pads for the Indian market, startup company Saathi solves two problems at once. Just 16 percent of women in India use them due to poverty and other reasons, which causes health and social issues. At the same time, manufacturing them wastes millions of gallons of water, and two million tons of pads end up in landfills every year. To help with all that, Saathi's pads are affordable, made from discarded banana tree fibers, manufactured in a sustainable way and 100 percent biodegradable.

The US is now the third largest smartphone market in the world, according to a new report by global technology market analyst firm Canalys. The number of smartphone shipments to India grew 23 percent in the third quarter of this year, reaching just over 40 million units shipped. That makes India the second largest smartphone market, just behind number one China. Sorry, US, but you're in third place now.

Solar power was the fastest-growing source of global energy last year, overtaking growth from all other forms, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The spurt is largely attributed to lower prices and changing government policies encouraging a shift away from traditional power sources, such as coal. China, for example, has played an important role in renewable energy's prominence, accounting for almost half of all new solar panels installed worldwide.

Thought to have been Lord Krishna's favorite animal, the cow has achieved a uniquely sacred status in India. Their slaughter is prohibited through most of the country, beef consumption is largely outlawed as well and woe be the unlucky soul accused of breaking those taboos. In the US, however, that's not the case. We Americans love our cows. We love them so much that we ate a whopping 25.668 billion pounds of beef in 2016, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. There are 93.5 million heads of cattle in this country, but thanks to emerging biofabrication technologies, they could soon be as safe from the slaughterhouse as the cows of Delhi.

Facebook is lending a hand to help solve India's safe blood shortage. Its solution is to leverage its popular social network to put people in touch with blood donors. Starting in October, users in India will be able to sign up to become donors via their profile or by clicking on a designated promo message on the News Feed. The tool will ask you to submit info, such as your blood type and whether you've donated blood before. Facebook promises to keep your details private, but you can choose to share a simple donor status with others on the timeline.

After weeks of rumors, Google has officially released its payments app in India. Tez (Hindi for "fast") is a mobile wallet that seems like a blend between Android Pay and PayPal. Users can link their bank accounts and use it to pay for items in physical stores and online. The app also lets you transfer money securely to nearby users by using sound to pair devices (what Google calls "Audio QR"). Unlike NFC, the tech works on any smartphone in India, whether Android or iOS. And, it keeps your account info private.

In a classic case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, Apple's refusal to approve the Indian government's anti-spam iPhone app is causing uproar on both sides. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has been pushing unsuccessfully to get its "Do Not Disturb" software included in the App Store, and Apple refuses to budge on the matter, claiming it violates the company's privacy policy.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Dirk Ahlborn's crowdsourced Hyperloop project, has signed another deal in another country. The company has shaken hands with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board in India with the aim of building a loop connecting the two cities of Vijayawada and Amaravati.

Uber's reputations in India and the Philippines aren't stellar, to put it mildly, but the ridesharing company is making amends in both countries. To begin with, it's providing free insurance to its roughly 450,000 Indian drivers. As of September 1st, they'll have coverage for death, disability and hospital stays in the event of accidents. It comes a while after Uber had cut incentives, but it's still an important gesture.

Last week, local governments in the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana shut down citizens' internet access and text messaging services just before a verdict was to be released on a high-profile rape case. The case involved a cult leader with a large following who was accused of raping two women in his group. A statement from the Additional Chief Secretary of Haryana said the order was "issued to prevent any disturbance of peace and public order" in the region. Around 50 million people lost internet access for five days.

A landmark judgement has ruled that Indian citizens have a fundamental right to privacy, despite the country's vast biometric identification scheme. In a case bought forward by opponents of the government's Aadhaar biometric program, Chief Justice J.S Khehar said privacy was "protected as an intrinsic part of Article 21 that protects life and liberty". The unanimous verdict from the nine-judge bench overturns two previous rulings by the Supreme Court which said privacy was not a fundamental right.

HBO's Game of Thrones has suffered a couple of leaks lately, with episodes of the hit show released to the internet before their scheduled air date. According to a new report at AFP News, however, four individuals in India have been arrested, though not for the most recent hack, according to Entertainment Weekly. Deputy Commissioner of Police Akbar Pathan told AFP that the arrest was for "unauthorized publication of the fourth episode from season seven."

As self-driving cars are being tested everywhere from the US to South Korea, Germany to Australia, reports today make it clear that it won't be happening in India. The country's transport and highways minister, Nitin Gadkari told reporters today, "We won't allow driverless cars in India. I am very clear on this."

In light of the recent WannaCry and "NotPetya" global ransomware attacks, India is looking to strike a deal with Microsoft that would reduce the cost of its Windows 10 operating system by more than 75 percent. The country's cyber security coordinator, Gulshan Rai, told Reuters that the company has "in principle agreed."

Each year, March 10th in Tibet brings more police onto the streets, closer online censorship of terms like "Free Tibet" and "Dalai Lama" and a spate of cyberattacks.

"Every March 10th, almost all major Tibetan organizations in Dharamsala are targeted with Distributed Denial of Service and other cyber attacks," said Tenzin Dalha, a researcher at the Tibet Policy Institute, part of the Central Tibetan Administration. Four years ago, that happened to the Voice of Tibet (VOT), a nonprofit media outlet run out of the Indian hill town of Dharamsala, bringing its website down for several days.

The reason for the crackdown is that the date commemorates March 10th, 1959. On that day, rumors spread in the Tibetan capital Lhasa about the impending arrest of Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, by the Chinese, who had invaded the territory in 1950. Tibetans rallied to support their spiritual leader and the mass protests led to a violent crackdown. The Dalai Lama and his entourage escaped to India, where he and the Tibetan government-in-exile remain.

When VOT started in 1996, it was one of the few channels of communication between Tibetans and their government-in-exile across the border, as all newspapers, television and other print materials were heavily censored. Using shortwave radio, it transmitted its news service across the border into Chinese-occupied Tibet, both in Tibetan and Mandarin Chinese.

The Uber passenger who was brutally raped by her driver in India in 2014 has sued the ride-hailing firm for improperly obtaining and sharing her medical records. See, while the company showed support for her plight and publicly declared that it will do "everything to help bring [the] perpetrator to justice" -- the accused, pictured above, was sentenced to life in prison -- its head honchos apparently doubted her story. The lawsuit is partly based on a report published by Recode and The New York Times in early June, which revealed that Uber executive Eric Alexander got her records from the doctors who examined her after the sexual assault.

Uber's problems with corporate culture aren't over just because it fired 20 people. Both the New York Times and Recode have learned that the ridesharing company has fired Asia-Pacific president Eric Alexander (shown above) after word got out that he obtained the medical records of a woman raped by her Uber driver in New Delhi, India. Uber would only confirm that Alexander is no longer an employee, but it's more than a little unusual for a transportation exec to get sensitive information relating to a criminal case. And if the sources are accurate, the reasons behind the move are equally strange.

As the US comes to terms with President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, India is celebrating government efforts to promote green energy. Earlier this week, officials announced that all 12 of its major shipping ports will switch to renewable sources, making India the first country to convert all of its dockyards to run on electricity generated from solar and wind installations.

Brain death may no longer be a life sentence if one Philadelphia-based biomedical startup has its way. The company, Bioquark, plans to initiate a study later this year to see if a combination of stem cell and protein blend injections, electrical nerve stimulation, and laser therapy can reverse the effects of recent brain death. They're literally trying to bring people back from the dead.

Apple has begun building iPhones in India, a huge victory for that country's push for more companies to build products locally. According to The Wall Street Journal, iPhone SE models are being assembled at Wistron's plant in Karnataka. Apple has since confirmed that a small number of handsets have been produced, and are due to be shipped to customers in the near future.

India's hardline stance against spreading misinformation on social media is getting real. An administrator of a WhatsApp group has been arrested following accusations that he altered a photo of prime minister Narendra Modi "to look ugly and obscene," according to regional publication News18. It follows a recent ruling passed by Indian officials that prohibits social media posts that are fake, contain rumors or that could cause "religious disharmony" -- something similar to what Malaysia has passed.